biography
I’ve had a guitar in my hand since I was 6 or so. I also had the suede vest with fringe. You gotta wear those things when you’re 6 years old and performing as the Jackson 5 for your parents’ dinner party. Of course I was Michael, but you know - the darker, cooler Michael, when he looked like a man. The Second Act of the night was me imitating Buck Owens and Roy Clark from the Hee Haw episode the week before. Same guitar. Same suede vest. Same dream of living through music. That’s where it all started. Mark, please meet your Ego.
My first big concerts were John Denver, the Jackson 5, Billy Joel, and the Rodeo. They all came through my world. These were squeezed in between the Brady Bunch, Hee Haw worshiping, duck hunting (or as I call it, wasting perfectly good shotgun shells on sun-faded beer cans on the fence post in the Louisiana marsh), and kick-the-can marathons after the streetlights went off. I was BIG TIME.
My favorite memory from childhood is out on the boat in the middle of the lake with the radio cranked up watching the speedboat races and fireworks, singing with my sister and brother at the top of our lungs to Casey Kasim’s American Top 40. You remember, don't you - when the one and only radio station in town would play every type of music in a single hour: Willie and Waylon, Elvis, the Beatles, Earth Wind and Fire, Led Zeppelin, Glenn Campbell, Dolly Parton, Frank Sinatra, Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel, Hank Williams and Roger Miller.
Since then, I have worn down vinyl, stretched out cassettes, tested the indestructability of CD’s, and burned mp3’s of more music than you can shake a stick at. I don’t have a memory without a song attached to it.
It all came full circle when Casey Kasim himself did a segment on my old band on American Top 40. “To the little band from New Orleans that hit the big time. Nice work boys. Here they are, with their huge runaway hit ‘New Age Girl’...it’s Deadeye Dick.” Not something you forget. So I had that band a bit ago called Deadeye Dick. We had a #1 song called “New Age Girl” (otherwise known as "that Mary Moon song"). It made it’s way into “Dumb and Dumber” and about 40 rock compilation CD’s around the world - before making its way into the bargain bin at Blockbuster. But I have great pride and love for that journey. Wouldn’t change a thing. I mean Casey Kasim! Come on!
Then suddenly, after touring for years in just about every state in our beautiful country and 3 or 4 overseas tours, I found my childhood love again. And she was prettier than ever. Country Music. I now find myself in Nashville writing songs with folks who write those Top 40 hits. I am truly fortunate. I never knew a community could be so close, so positive, and so welcoming. It IS like coming home. But the stage calls to me again, my swagger has returned, and I ain’t afraid to bust out the old school chops. Somehow everything I grew up with makes it’s way into the room. A soul never forgets.